(This is a continuation of thoughts from two previous posts:
https://r-pentomino.blogspot.com/2024/09/infotopia-rant.html
and
https://r-pentomino.blogspot.com/2024/10/reasoning-and-revolution.html
)
I recently attended a technology convention during which there was a presentation involving a sit-down discussion between the CEO of the hosting corporation, and a world renowned international lawyer, who has enjoyed a high degree of success, and celebrity status.
Their discussion focused around their personal, interests and efforts to make the world a better, fairer, more just place. There were three key points which I found particularly enlightening.
First, the CEO in question made it quite clear that his foremost interests were fairness and sustainability.
And by sustainability, he means carbon. He has a broad variety of initiatives in his corporation focused around carbon sequestering and carbon reduction. I have a problem with this. As I look around carbon seems the least of our worries, Vegetation can compensate for increasing carbon levels without too much trouble. Microplastics, in the other hand, or PFAS or pharmaceuticals in drinking water are much more concerning. The priority seems driven entirely by marketability and profitability, rather than any real risk analysis.
The second point caught my attention, was a statement made by the lawyer. She quoted a statistic given to her by her friend Melinda Gates, another celebrity philanthropist, seeking the betterment of the world. She said that "only two percent of philanthropic dollars go to help girls and women."
That is a very disturbing sounding statistic. Hard not to feel an emotional response to that. And that is the main complaint.
The statistic was presented in a weaponized fashion. It is meant to elicit a strong emotion response. A sense of anger at the injustice, the unfairness.
The statistic, as presented means absolutely nothing.
There is no context. How was that number calculated? What data sources were queried to generate the balance sheet? How is the rest divided? Does that 2% refer to dollars which go explicitly and exclusively to girls and women, or does it include a partial accounting of dollars going to all children? to food programs, drinking water, and other programs that help both men and women? If the 2% metric includes those, then where is the other ninety-eight percent going? Dogs? Cats? Endangered species? Trees? Dirt?
What is the average size of a slice from that total pie chart? If every other comparable category is getting less than two percent, then girls and women are getting the largest comparative slice by getting 'only two percent'. You as the receiver of this context-less statistic have no way of knowing what it actually means, it merely serves to manipulate you.
So then, that raises a question. Did this highly competent, admired and successful international lawyer make that claim with the intent to mislead the audience, or did she fail to consider the lack of context herself? Either scenario is troubling, demonstrating either willful dishonesty or woeful incompetence.
But the most illuminating comment was one from the CEO regarding 'fairness'. He made the statement that the world's problems can be solved by trust, that trust comes from fairness, and that fairness comes from justice and regulation.
I should note he explicitly clarified "justice and regulation" as meaning the right laws and the right punishments.
(and I will pause to disagree with this claim. Trust doesn't come from fairness, it comes from honesty and integrity. Fairness doesn't come from Justice, it comes from adherence to the oldest of laws, the great commandment, if you will - that of Loving God [yes, there is a way this can be applied to the atheist as well as the theist, another post perhaps...], and Loving your neighbor as yourself. All other rules and regulations (and therefore loopholes, and points of coruption) should disappear as people more effectively implement these two. Society becomes more fair and equitable as laws are reduced, not multiplied.)
This philosophy seems a common view held by the politically and financially powerful. I have heard it alluded to by any others, though perhaps not quite so succinctly, or precisely. It was disturbing that a man of such an influential position would ascribe to such a philosophy. Even more disturbing that a room filled with thousands of educated individuals would applaud such a statement.
This philosophy has been the bread and butter of every oppressive, authoritarian regime since the dawn of time.
I understand the appeal - the vision of a Utopian society in which the right set of just laws bound the behavior of its citizens, thereby providing peace and prosperity for all. Surely it must be possible for the right group of people with superior intellect and sound moral principles to create such a Utopia.
But whose moral principals? Each group or individual is convinced of the superiority of their position as "the one true way". Each group ultimately discriminates against some beliefs, some individuals. And each group justifies it in the name of "the greater good".
Consider a simple example of a policy regarding use of company credit cards- A policy stating "use of company card for personal purposes is strictly forbidden, and doing so is grounds for termination." Nothing wrong with that, is there? The company card is regulated by tax law, so personal use creates a burden on the company, and the potential for fines, or accusations of tax fraud. So the company is protecting itself from employee misuse.
But what then of the woman, rushing in to the store to buy diapers on her way home, who accidentally grabs the wrong card from her purse? It was an honest mistake, surely not a reason to lose her job.
But rules are rules, she should have been more careful. If they make an exception for this case, then what about the next case? and the next? In a company of thousands of employees, and just a handful of people assigned to policing these cases, they don't have the resources to arbitrate each case, so....
What about age related rules, as another example? What age should someone be allowed to drink alcohol? 21, 12? Different countries set different boundaries, each based on their "scientific reasoning" Each is smugly sure of their justification, and usually condescending of contrary opinions.
What about age of consent? Just looking at the US, the age varies from sixteen to eighteen, depending on the state. But assume for a moment that everyone, globally, decides to accept sixteen. Why sixteen? If sixteen is okay, then why is fifteen years, three-hundred-sixty-four days (365 if it is a leap year) and twenty-three hours not? And if you allow an exception for sixteen minus one day, then why not sixteen minus two? minus three? minus...?
And what of the law makers? The enforcers? A degree of power must be acceded to them. What ensures they won't abuse that position of power? In all of history, how many powerful regimes can you point to that have never once abused that power? How many have never been part of a massacre (the holocaust, Tiananmen square, Kent State University 1970,...)? Never overthrown or tampered with another country's government in pursuit of their own interests? Never created laws, then exempted themselves from those laws? What powerful organization has not performed questionable acts against their own citizens in secrecy? Or invoked the "letter of the law" while violating the spirit?
Bill Gates once condemned the government for not requiring him to pay more taxes, for placing that burden on the middle and lower classes, rather than on him. Do you know what he didn't do? He didn't lower the cost of his products. If he felt he was overpaid, and others underpaid, why did he not do that? Why did he not cut his own salary? That was in his power to do, and would have accomplished the same end.
He is lauded for his work in vaccines, particularly around malaria. Now, I don't wish to suggest the outcome was not a good one, but It should also be noted that, in more than one interview, he stated one of his key motivations for pursuing this work was to improve quality of life, specifically in third-world countries (another positive), for the express purpose of altering (socially engineering) the reproductive behavior of women in those countries to have fewer children. His driving motivation was (is) to build Utopia, according to his vision, his perspective, with him benevolently guiding the "unwashed masses".
In the vein of vaccines, consider also, some of the policies during the Covid Pandemic. Other strategies apart from the vaccine race were proposed for dealing with the pandemic, some of which - in theory at least - might have ended the pandemic much more quickly. They were ultimately discarded, some claim in part due to the massive lobbying dollars provided by the pharmaceutical industry. Interesting to consider, but likely unprovable. And that lack of transparency is a notable concern.
When the vaccine arrived, the world seemed to divide largely into two groups - Pro-Vax and Anti-Vax - each making their compelling case with "scientific" data, outrageous anecdotes, finger-pointing, and fear-mongering.
The truth, as it often does, fell somewhere in the middle.
There were some people who had adverse reactions to the vaccine, some chronically, or even fatally so.
There were other people who benefited dramatically from the vaccine, in some cases experiencing a reversal of chronic post-covid symptoms.
Now the rational, logical path forward would be to gather as much data as possible, from as many people as possible, to develop an accurate profile of who would likely experience benefits, and who would likely experience detriments, thereby allowing individuals to make an informed decision based on their specific circumstances.
Instead, the contemporary powers sought to implement their vision of "Utopia" either by attempting to discredit the vaccine altogether, through propaganda, or by working to implement vaccine mandates.
In either "Utopian" outcome, one subgroup suffers.
Back to the CEO and Lawyer- both are multi-millionaires, the Lawyer doubly so, due to her husband being a very successful actor. If they are so concerned about fairness, why don't they reduce their own incomes, cut costs of their products? raise salaries of their workers? hire more people to do other jobs?
Because each of these individuals is convinced of their own intellectual and moral superiority. Each is convinced they are "the one" - or at least a member of that elite group - who can lead the poor unwashed masses out of their state of ignorance and into Utopia. Each fails to recognize that their vision, their strengths, and their flaws, are no different than those of the monsters who went before them - the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Zedongs and the Nyiramasuhukos... All full of good intention and sincerity and... madness. They fail to understand that they are not nearly so different as they believe.
To be fair, we don't see this either, as we only remember those men, and women as monsters, we don't remember that they too were once idealists, dreamers, artists, social workers, students, soldiers, victims, politicians, fathers or mothers, sons or daughters...
They, we - both the monsters of the past and the potential monsters-to-be -, are all ultimately driven by our personal interests, ideals, desires, flaws, and foibles, and by our mis-perceptions of reality.
One individual's Utopian vision is inevitably another's Dystopian nightmare.
A year ago, after a conversation involving efforts to clear up misinformation on an unrelated, yet still relevant topic (pharmaceutical industry overreach), a recent friend made the following comment to me:
"...and I literally fear all politics and socio economics manoeuvres trying to control the people somehow, making them weak or inducing them to spend money to whatever they decide to without any thought on the people health and wellbeing
Sometimes I feel just a small piece in a big money machine the money goes always to someone else..🙄🙄"
Reading this again In light of the recent insights I acquired, it occurs to me that (and I may be getting ahead of myself in my "reasoning" work here.) at the core we are, each of us, seeking our Utopia. We are seeking a state of peace, prosperity, safety, for ourselves, our loved ones... And most of the time we are ignorant of the dystopian effects on others of our Utopian vision.
This is the case whether you are part of the one-percent, or the ninety-nine.
What fundamentally separates the one-percent from the rest is their capacity to evangelize their particular flavor of Utopia, and their capacity to obliviously impose that "Utopia", on others, with all its dystopian consequences (which they and their sycophants refer to as 'unintended consequences' or, more heartlessly, 'collateral damage' or 'acceptable losses').
It seems a never-ending cycle- Utopian dreams to dystopian nightmares to revolts to new Utopian dreams.... round and round the wheel turns.
But, is it an inevitable cycle, or is there another path which can be taken?